on.’
‘Well, the horn handle has next to be shaped and fitted, again in a particular way at a particular hour, and then perfected at still another day and hour. By the way, you mentioned a different steeping bath. If you use that ritual, the days and the hours are also different, and again the question is, what’s essential and what isn’t? Thereafter, there’s a conjuration to be recited, plus three salutations and a warding spell. Then the instrument is sprinkled, wrapped and fumigated – not in the modern sense, I mean it’s perfumed – and is ready to use. After it’s used, it has to be exorcised and rededicated, and that’s the difference between the wrapped tools on the table and those hanging here in the rack.
‘I won’t go into detail about the preparation of the other instruments. The next one I make is the pen of the Art, followed by the inkpots and the inks, for obvious reasons – and, for the same reasons, the burin or graver. The pens are on my desk. This fitted needle here is the burin. The rest, going down the line as they hang here rather than in order of manufacture, are the white-handled knife, which like the bolline is nearly an all-purpose tool … the black-handled knife, used almost solely for inscribing the circle … the stylet, chiefly for preparing the wooden knives used in tanning … the wand or blasting rod, which describes itself … the lancet, again self-descriptive … the staff, a restraining instrument analogous to a shepherd’s … and lastly the four swords, one for the master, the other three for his assistants, if any.’
With a side-glance at Ware for permission, Hess leaned forward to inspect the writings on the graven instruments. Some of them were easy enough to make out: on the sword of the master, for instance, the word M ICHAEL appeared on thepommel, and on the blade, running from point to hilt, E LOHIM G IBOR . On the other hand, on the handle of the white-handled knife was engraved the following:
Hess pointed to this, and to a different but equally baffling inscription that was duplicated on the handles of the stylet and the lancet. ‘What do those mean?’
‘Mean? They can hardly be said to mean anything any more. They’re greatly degenerate Hebrew characters, orignally comprising various Divine Names. I could tell you what the Names were once, but the characters have no content any more – they just have to be there,’
‘Superstition,’ Hess said, recalling his earlier conversation with Baines, interpreting Ware’s remark about Christmas.
‘Precisely, in the pure sense. The process is as fundamental to the Art as evolution is to biology. Now if you’ll step this way, I’ll show you some other aspects that may interest you.’
He led the way diagonally across the room to the chemist’s bench, pausing to rub irritatedly at the chalk marks with the sole of his slipper. ‘I suppose a modern translation of that aphorism of Paracelsus,’ he said, ‘would be “You just can’t get good servants any more.” Not to ply mops, anyhow. … Now, most of these reagents will be familiar to you, but some of them are special to the Art. This, for instance, is exorcised water, which as you see I need in great quantities. It has to be river water to start with. The quicklime is for tanning. Some laymen, de Camp for instance, will tell you that “virgin parchment” simply means parchment that’s never been written on before, but that’s not so – all the grimoires insist that it must be the skin of a male animal that has never engendered, and the
Clavicula Salomonis
sometimes insists upon unborn parchment, or the caul of a newborn child. For tanning I also have to grind my own salt, after the usual rites are said over it. The candles I use have to be made of the first wax taken from a new hive, and so do my almadels. If I need images, I have to make them of earth dug up with my bare hands and reduced to apaste without any tool. And so on.
‘I’ve
‘Well, the horn handle has next to be shaped and fitted, again in a particular way at a particular hour, and then perfected at still another day and hour. By the way, you mentioned a different steeping bath. If you use that ritual, the days and the hours are also different, and again the question is, what’s essential and what isn’t? Thereafter, there’s a conjuration to be recited, plus three salutations and a warding spell. Then the instrument is sprinkled, wrapped and fumigated – not in the modern sense, I mean it’s perfumed – and is ready to use. After it’s used, it has to be exorcised and rededicated, and that’s the difference between the wrapped tools on the table and those hanging here in the rack.
‘I won’t go into detail about the preparation of the other instruments. The next one I make is the pen of the Art, followed by the inkpots and the inks, for obvious reasons – and, for the same reasons, the burin or graver. The pens are on my desk. This fitted needle here is the burin. The rest, going down the line as they hang here rather than in order of manufacture, are the white-handled knife, which like the bolline is nearly an all-purpose tool … the black-handled knife, used almost solely for inscribing the circle … the stylet, chiefly for preparing the wooden knives used in tanning … the wand or blasting rod, which describes itself … the lancet, again self-descriptive … the staff, a restraining instrument analogous to a shepherd’s … and lastly the four swords, one for the master, the other three for his assistants, if any.’
With a side-glance at Ware for permission, Hess leaned forward to inspect the writings on the graven instruments. Some of them were easy enough to make out: on the sword of the master, for instance, the word M ICHAEL appeared on thepommel, and on the blade, running from point to hilt, E LOHIM G IBOR . On the other hand, on the handle of the white-handled knife was engraved the following:
Hess pointed to this, and to a different but equally baffling inscription that was duplicated on the handles of the stylet and the lancet. ‘What do those mean?’
‘Mean? They can hardly be said to mean anything any more. They’re greatly degenerate Hebrew characters, orignally comprising various Divine Names. I could tell you what the Names were once, but the characters have no content any more – they just have to be there,’
‘Superstition,’ Hess said, recalling his earlier conversation with Baines, interpreting Ware’s remark about Christmas.
‘Precisely, in the pure sense. The process is as fundamental to the Art as evolution is to biology. Now if you’ll step this way, I’ll show you some other aspects that may interest you.’
He led the way diagonally across the room to the chemist’s bench, pausing to rub irritatedly at the chalk marks with the sole of his slipper. ‘I suppose a modern translation of that aphorism of Paracelsus,’ he said, ‘would be “You just can’t get good servants any more.” Not to ply mops, anyhow. … Now, most of these reagents will be familiar to you, but some of them are special to the Art. This, for instance, is exorcised water, which as you see I need in great quantities. It has to be river water to start with. The quicklime is for tanning. Some laymen, de Camp for instance, will tell you that “virgin parchment” simply means parchment that’s never been written on before, but that’s not so – all the grimoires insist that it must be the skin of a male animal that has never engendered, and the
Clavicula Salomonis
sometimes insists upon unborn parchment, or the caul of a newborn child. For tanning I also have to grind my own salt, after the usual rites are said over it. The candles I use have to be made of the first wax taken from a new hive, and so do my almadels. If I need images, I have to make them of earth dug up with my bare hands and reduced to apaste without any tool. And so on.
‘I’ve
Similar Books
